Geosoft - Exploring With Data

Inverse Colour Tables

Oasis montaj and Target users can modify Geosoft colour tables to create custom colour tables, as well as ZON and ITR files (which assign colours to a range of data) using the Image Colour Tool.  

However, there is no button here to reverse the colour scheme using the Image Colour Tool. 

You can download ready-to-use inverse colour tables for all the Geosoft standard colour tables from the Geosoft website:  http://www.geosoft.com/support/updates/montajextras.asp

Just place these new files in your program "tbl" folder.

Copy and Paste

Oasis montaj and Target maps are easy to share and incorporate in reports and presentations.

You can copy a map directly into Microsoft Word or PowerPoint.

1. While in Shadow Cursor mode, right click on the map and select Copy.
2. In Word or PowerPoint, select Paste Special (instead of Paste), and choose Picture (Enhanced Metafile).

You can also copy text (including font and formatting) from a Microsoft document to a Geosoft Map.

1. Select the text and choose Copy in your Microsoft document
2. In your Oasis montaj map, select Paste.

The new group is also an EMF (enhanced metafile) so it can be resized but not edited.

 

OneGeology - Geology of the World at 1:1 Million

Datasets published through the OneGeology portal are accessible through Dapple as noted in a post last year about Finding Data.  Now the same data can be used with ArcGIS as well: http://www.esri.com/news/releases/10_2qtr/onegeo.html 

Oasis montaj and Target Hot Keys

Geosoft Oasis montaj and Target have a number of useful hot keys and shortcuts to improve efficiency when navigating on a map.  My favourite hot keys for working with a map are a combination of F and B.  F for "Zoom to full map" and B for "Zoom box". 

Other handy hot keys:

• Alt+C or the Escape key puts you back to Shadow Cursor mode
• S will zoom to a selected group. This is really useful if you have added a group to the map, but it didn't appear in the Data View.

You can configure or reset hot keys through the GX menu option Map Settings > Configure Map Shortcut Keys.

A full listing of shortcuts and other tips can be found in the Oasis montaj Quick Reference Card or Target Quick Reference Card.

Creating a Target List of Anomalies

We have already described how to dynamically link maps to other maps, database lines and profiles (see Linking Maps and Data).  The shadow cursor and data linking tools can also be used when working in Oasis montaj or Target to select anomalies and create a list of targets in a database. 

 

You can build a list of targets or anomalies from database profiles.  Simply select the anomaly in the profile window and right-click to access the context menu.

 

 

"Select Target..." will create a new group in the database (groups are similar to lines).  The default name is "Targets".  This can be easily changed, allowing multiple anomaly lists to be created.  Other database channels can be included along with the picked target location. 

 

 

The option to immediately plot a symbol of the location on the map is available too.  This is useful when using the database and map together with the Shadow Cursor Data Linking Tool, allowing you to pick target locations while seeing which targets have already been selected.

 

Pick as many targets as you like by selecting lines and right clicking on the profiles. Then review the list in the database. 

 

 

Later on, you can subset the group to create a new database or create new symbol plots using the associated channels.

Colour Bars and Group Names

In the upcoming version 7.2 release, groups names have been extended (from 31 characters to 1024 characters!), so you will see the full file name in the View/Group Manager Tool.   If you hold your mouse over the grid, you will also see the path to that file.

Tip: If you are resizing or moving a floating tool like the View/Group Manager and you do not want it to dock to the Oasis montaj workspace area, just hold down the Ctrl key while you are repositioning the tool.  This works for Geochemistry graphing tools like Histogram and Scatter Plot as well.

The longer group names are visible in the Colour Bar utility as well, which is handy when a map contains numerous grids or shaded grids.

To add more depth to your colour bar, try using the Secondary AGG/layer. The secondary, or shaded colour scheme, is blended horizontally within each colour of the primary colour scheme.  The effect is shown below.

Drag and Drop to a New Project

Oasis montaj and Target support a variety of drag and drop capabilities.

You can drag a map, grid, or database from Windows Explorer or from the list in the Project Explorer and drop it into the working area of the project.  It is a quick way to open your dataset.

You can drag a grid from the Project Explorer and drop it in an open map. This is similar to displaying a single grid.

You can drag a group from the View/Group Manager Tool for one map and drop in on another map. This is the copy and paste georeferenced functionality.

And then, when you have a long list of files in the Project Explorer and you would like to have a tidier project, you can create a new Geosoft Project and while it is open beside the original, drag and drop the datasets from the Project Explorer in the original project into the new project.

How did I do that? Metadata and more...

The volumes and numbers of datasets that we work with are ever-increasing.  And in addition we are constantly pulled away from one project and onto another, and then back again, so keeping track of what was done to a dataset in processing, or where that dataset came from, can be challenging. 

There are a few spots that you can look at for the answers though:

1. Database channels that are created using a function like Copy Channel or a filter such as Low-Pass have a “maker”.  This resides at the bottom of the context menu that pops up when you right click on the channel.  If you open it, you’ll see the parameters that were used to create that channel.

2. The Geosoft Project File (*.GPF) contains a log of all the non-interactive tasks that have been run in that workspace.  This is accessed through the GX menu under Log > View Log.  Viewing the log creates a file in the working folder called ViewProcessing.log that you can use.  The recording looks very similar to a script.

3.  You have probably noticed that all Geosoft document files have an accompanying XML file.  This metadata file stores ISO 19139 standard metadata including information about who (the logged in user) and when (from the computer date and time) a file was created.  It also contains lineage about how that file was created.  A Geosoft Database (*.GDB) may have been subset from another larger database, while a grid (*.GRD) may have been created with minimum curvature gridding and some modified gridding parameters.  This kind of information is recorded in the metadata.

In the upcoming 2010 release of version 7.2, some changes have been made to what metadata is recorded to improve the relevance of the lineage and performance of these metadata files.  There will also an option to turn off the creation of metadata files during scripting since the script already contains the information about how that dataset was generated.

Specify Exact Position

Finding your exact location on a map can be really useful when cross-referencing one location with another, such as if you needed to mark a target on the map.  This is most easily done by hovering the Shadow Cursor over a map (the Alt+C keyboard shortcut will put you in Shadow Cursor mode) so the location appears in the right side of the Status Bar. 

 

While this is useful, this information cannot be copy and pasted elsewhere.  Hitting the Enter key pops up the Specify Exact Position dialog box with editable X and Y fields that you can copy or change.  Entering a new x,y location here will re-position the Shadow Cursor.

This also works when you are using CAD Tools for digitizing or interactively specifying the location of a section in Target.
 

New Geosoft Videos Page

I've included links to videos in previous blogs as quick and handy ways to see a new tool or tip.  Now it's even easier to access this material.  All the videos are available on the Geosoft Videos page.

A handy plus for those of us that travel - we can download the mp4 and watch them on an iPod or offline with QuickTime Player.